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<blockquote data-quote="LightPhoenix" data-source="post: 5202747" data-attributes="member: 115">In all fairness, a lot of times reporters do that all on their own.&nbsp; After all, it's a lot more interesting to say &quot;Hints of life found on Titan&quot; than &quot;Expected hydrogen and acetylene levels on Titan not accounted for.&quot;&nbsp; Still, the quest for funding is one of the necessary but icky parts of being a scientist.&nbsp; Unfortunately research does not pay for itself, and it's always a competition to get funding.We actually do have intestinal flora that process things we don't digest.&nbsp; Adjusting that flora isn't as simple as injecting new species though.&nbsp; Within the first month or so after birth our immune systems become attuned to the flora in our gut.&nbsp; Afterward, foreign bacteria are treated like any other non-self object, and attacked by the immune system.&nbsp; Unfortunately, a lot of factors go in to what flora we have - method of birth, breast feeding, maternal flora, and local environment being the big ones.&nbsp; Still, the best method for pursuing what you describe would be genetic alterations of gut flora.&nbsp; For example, you could find cellulose-digesting bacteria, take the genes for that mechanism, insert them into gut flora, and hope there's not enough different for the immune system to attack it.There are a couple of other difficulties involved.&nbsp; The big one is that intestinal flora are generally anaerobic; they don't like oxygen.&nbsp; So figuring out how to easily administer them would be a challenge.&nbsp; Additionally, any sort of antibiotic regimen or other medical treatment that removes gut flora would also destroy the modified bacteria.&nbsp; Therefore, it would need to be reintroduced on occassion.&nbsp; It's hypothesized that bacteria (specifically biofilms) exist in the appendix, where it's protected from such &quot;killing events&quot; and can be rejuvenated from there.&nbsp; It may be possible to introduce the modified bacteria there, however it's only a hypothesis.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="LightPhoenix, post: 5202747, member: 115"] In all fairness, a lot of times reporters do that all on their own. After all, it's a lot more interesting to say "Hints of life found on Titan" than "Expected hydrogen and acetylene levels on Titan not accounted for." Still, the quest for funding is one of the necessary but icky parts of being a scientist. Unfortunately research does not pay for itself, and it's always a competition to get funding. We actually do have intestinal flora that process things we don't digest. Adjusting that flora isn't as simple as injecting new species though. Within the first month or so after birth our immune systems become attuned to the flora in our gut. Afterward, foreign bacteria are treated like any other non-self object, and attacked by the immune system. Unfortunately, a lot of factors go in to what flora we have - method of birth, breast feeding, maternal flora, and local environment being the big ones. Still, the best method for pursuing what you describe would be genetic alterations of gut flora. For example, you could find cellulose-digesting bacteria, take the genes for that mechanism, insert them into gut flora, and hope there's not enough different for the immune system to attack it. There are a couple of other difficulties involved. The big one is that intestinal flora are generally anaerobic; they don't like oxygen. So figuring out how to easily administer them would be a challenge. Additionally, any sort of antibiotic regimen or other medical treatment that removes gut flora would also destroy the modified bacteria. Therefore, it would need to be reintroduced on occassion. It's hypothesized that bacteria (specifically biofilms) exist in the appendix, where it's protected from such "killing events" and can be rejuvenated from there. It may be possible to introduce the modified bacteria there, however it's only a hypothesis. [/QUOTE]

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